[QSB-grads] Welcome to new QSB Chair Miriam Barlow!

[David Ardell]

Dear QSB Grads and Postdocs,

I hope you’ve all had wonderful holidays. I am writing to tell you that my term as QSB Chair ended last semester as according to the 3-year Chair term limit in our QSB Bylaws, and to ask your help in welcoming Prof. Miriam Barlow as our new QSB Chair. Miriam is an excellent choice for Chair as her own research reflects the diversity and interdisciplinarity of science and engineering in QSB well. Furthermore I am confident that Miriam cares as much about graduate student welfare, irrespective of field, as I have, and I believe that she will strengthen our program with her own innovative ideas and leadership.  So whether you know Miriam or not please do join me in welcoming her as our new Chair! 

I have very much enjoyed being your Chair and serving you in your degree progress over the last four application seasons. During that period, applications to QSB more than doubled from 39 to 89 applications per year, and the number of entering QSB students nearly doubled from 12 to last year’s 22, which was the best in the program’s history ever. To put this data in another perspective, QSB entering students made up almost half of all entering graduate students in SNS graduate programs.  As you can see, it is you the students who help define our metrics of success. You literally vote with your feet to come here. With that in mind, I cannot thank you ever enough for your confidence in QSB, UC Merced and our faculty.

Again, please help me welcome Miriam to her new role as QSB Chair. I encourage you to contact her whenever you have questions that somehow extend beyond your mentors, supervisors and committee, and of course for all duties that require action by the Chair. If ever I may be of service, please don’t hesitate to drop me a line.

Best wishes in your research!

Sincerely,
Dave Ardell

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David H. Ardell
Associate Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology
University of California, Merced, CA 95343
office:SE1 228 ; office phone: 2092282953 ; web: http://davidardell.org
Please contact me by email at dardell at ucmerced.edu